I hope everyone is enjoying summer break!  Check out the new DVDs and spend some time relaxing, even if you aren’t getting much of a break this summer.

The King’s Speech
2010 Academy Award Winner – Best Picture, Best Actor
The story of King George VI of Britain, his impromptu ascension to the throne and the speech therapist who helped the unsure monarch become worthy of it.

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Exit through the Gift Shop
2010 Academy Award Nominee
An eccentric French shopkeeper turned documentary maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner with spectacular results. Banksy is a graffiti artist with a global reputation whose work can be seen on walls from post-hurricane New Orleans to the Palestinian segregation wall in the West Bank. Fiercely guarding his anonymity to avoid prosecution, Banksy has so far resisted all attempts to be captured on film.

Inside Islam: What 1 Billion Muslims Really Think
Documentary Film (2010)
Explores the expertly gathered opinions of Muslims around the globe as revealed in the world’s first major opinion poll, conducted by Gallup, the preeminent polling organization. The poll, a window into the hearts and minds of the world’s more than 1.3 billion Muslims in more than 35 predominantly Muslim countries, the US and Europe, provides a way to understand what ordinary Muslims think and why.  Like the research, the film highlights a shared relationship between Muslims and the West that is based on facts.

Paper Heart
Documentary-Style Film (2009)
A young woman, disillusioned by the fairytale description of love, decides to make a documentary to find out exactly what the word and feelings surrounding it mean to others. Along the way she meets the boy of her dreams and wonders if she will lose the one thing she never believed in.
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Fridays at the Farm
Documentary filmed locally, in suburban Philadelphia (2009)
Feeling disconnected from their food, a filmmaker and his family decide to join a   community-supported organic farm. As he photographs the growing process, the filmmaker moves from passive observer to active participant in the planting and harvesting of vegetables. Featuring time-lapse and macro photography sequences compiled from nearly 20,000 still images, this personal essay is a father’s meditation on his blossoming family and community.